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Articles 1 - 30 of 34
Full-Text Articles in Law
Plaintiffs' Process: Civil Procedure, Mdl, And A Day In Court, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, Abbe R. Gluck
Plaintiffs' Process: Civil Procedure, Mdl, And A Day In Court, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, Abbe R. Gluck
Scholarly Works
The article focuses on the concept of "plaintiffs process" within the field of civil procedure. It discusses how civil procedure doctrine has traditionally been defendant-centric, focusing on the rights and protections of defendants in legal cases. It examines the role of multidistrict litigation (MDL) in this context and how it impacts plaintiffs rights and access to the courts.
The Institutional Mismatch Of State Civil Courts, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, Alyx Mark, Anna E. Carpenter
The Institutional Mismatch Of State Civil Courts, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, Alyx Mark, Anna E. Carpenter
Faculty Scholarship
State civil courts are central institutions in American democracy. Though designed for dispute resolution, these courts function as emergency rooms for social needs in the face of the failure of the legislative and executive branches to disrupt or mitigate inequality. We reconsider national case data to analyze the presence of social needs in state civil cases. We then use original data from courtroom observation and interviews to theorize how state civil courts grapple with the mismatch between the social needs people bring to these courts and their institutional design. This institutional mismatch leads to two roles of state civil courts …
Judges And The Deregulation Of The Lawyer's Monopoly, Jessica Steinberg, Anna E. Carpenter, Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark
Judges And The Deregulation Of The Lawyer's Monopoly, Jessica Steinberg, Anna E. Carpenter, Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
In a revolutionary moment for the legal profession, the deregulation of legal services is taking hold in many parts of the country. Utah and Arizona, for instance, are experimenting with new regulations that permit nonlawyer advocates to play an active role in assisting citizens who may not otherwise have access to legal services. In addition, amendments to the Rules of Professional Conduct in both states, as well as those being contemplated in California, now allow nonlawyers to have a partnership stake in law firms, which may dramatically change the way capital for the delivery of legal services is raised as …
The Elastics Of Snap Removal: An Empirical Case Study Of Textualism, Thomas O. Main, Jeffrey W. Stempel, David Mcclure
The Elastics Of Snap Removal: An Empirical Case Study Of Textualism, Thomas O. Main, Jeffrey W. Stempel, David Mcclure
Scholarly Works
This article reports the findings of an empirical study of textualism as applied by federal judges interpreting the statute that permits removal of diversity cases from state to federal court. The “snap removal” provision in the statute is particularly interesting because its application forces judges into one of two interpretive camps—which are fairly extreme versions of textualism and purposivism, respectively. We studied characteristics of cases and judges to find predictors of textualist outcomes. In this article we offer a narrative discussion of key variables and we detail the results of our logistic regression analysis. The most salient predictive variable was …
Class Certification In The U.S. Courts Of Appeals: A Longitudinal Study, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang
Class Certification In The U.S. Courts Of Appeals: A Longitudinal Study, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang
All Faculty Scholarship
There is a vast literature on the modern class action, but little of it is informed by systematic empirical data. Mindful both that there have been few Supreme Court class certification decisions and that they may not provide an accurate picture of class action jurisprudence, let alone class action activity, over time, we created a comprehensive data set of class certification decisions in the United States Courts of Appeals consisting of all precedential panel decisions addressing whether a class should be certified from 1966 through 2017, and of nonprecedential panel decisions from 2002 through 2017.
In Section I, through a …
Law School News The First Circuit At Rwu Law 10/03/2018, Michael M. Bowden, Julia Rubin
Law School News The First Circuit At Rwu Law 10/03/2018, Michael M. Bowden, Julia Rubin
Life of the Law School (1993- )
No abstract provided.
Litigation Academy Helps Lawyers Hone Skills 4-30-2018, Katie Mulvaney, Roger Williams University School Of Law
Litigation Academy Helps Lawyers Hone Skills 4-30-2018, Katie Mulvaney, Roger Williams University School Of Law
Life of the Law School (1993- )
No abstract provided.
A Prescription For Overcoming Gender Inequity In Complex Litigation: An Idea Whose Time Has Come, Suzette M. Malveaux
A Prescription For Overcoming Gender Inequity In Complex Litigation: An Idea Whose Time Has Come, Suzette M. Malveaux
Publications
No abstract provided.
Trending @ Rwu Law: Dean Yelnosky's Post: United States Court Of Appeals For Veterans Claims Visits Rwu Law: 03-03-2016, Michael Yelnosky
Trending @ Rwu Law: Dean Yelnosky's Post: United States Court Of Appeals For Veterans Claims Visits Rwu Law: 03-03-2016, Michael Yelnosky
Law School Blogs
No abstract provided.
Restoring The Civil Jury In A World Without Trials, Dmitry Bam
Restoring The Civil Jury In A World Without Trials, Dmitry Bam
Faculty Publications
Early in this nation’s history, the civil jury was the most important institutional check on biased and corrupt judges. Recently, concerns about judicial bias, especially in elected state judiciaries, have intensified as new studies demonstrate the extent of that bias. But the jury of Hamilton, Madison, and Jefferson is nowhere to be found. In fact, the civil jury is virtually dead. It is used in less than 1% of all civil cases, and even when it makes a rare appearance, the jury’s powers have been significantly curtailed.
This article argues that we must reimagine the civil jury to match the …
Recusal Failure, Dmitry Bam
Recusal Failure, Dmitry Bam
Faculty Publications
The American judiciary is suffering from a terrible affliction: biased judges. I am not talking about the subconscious or unconscious biases — stemming from different backgrounds, experiences, ideologies, etc. — that everyone, including judges, harbors. Rather, I am describing invidious, improper biases that lead judges to favor one litigant over another for reasons that almost everyone would agree should play no role in judicial decision-making: the desire to repay a debt of gratitude to those who helped the judge get elected and be reelected.
In this article, I argue that that recusal has failed to prevent biased judges from rendering …
The Lock-In Effect Of Preliminary Injunctions, Kevin J. Lynch
The Lock-In Effect Of Preliminary Injunctions, Kevin J. Lynch
Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship
Judges suffer from the same cognitive biases that afflict the rest of us. Judges use shortcuts to help them deal with the uncertainty and time pressure inherent in the judicial process. Judges should be aware of the conditions when those shortcuts lead to systemic biases in decision-making, and adjust legal standards in order to reduce or avoid such bias altogether.
One important bias that has been identified by economists and psychologists is the lock-in effect. The lock-in effect causes a decision-maker who must revisit an earlier decision to be locked-in to the earlier decision. The effect is particularly pronounced where …
Managerial Judging And Substantive Law, Tobias Barrington Wolff
Managerial Judging And Substantive Law, Tobias Barrington Wolff
All Faculty Scholarship
The figure of the proactive jurist, involved in case management from the outset of the litigation and attentive throughout the proceedings to the impact of her decisions on settlement dynamics -- a managerial judge -- has displaced the passive umpire as the dominant paradigm in the federal district courts. Thus far, discussions of managerial judging have focused primarily upon values endogenous to the practice of judging. Procedural scholarship has paid little attention to the impact of the underlying substantive law on the parameters and conduct of complex proceedings.
In this Article, I examine the interface between substantive law and managerial …
Trial By Preview, Bert I. Huang
Trial By Preview, Bert I. Huang
Faculty Scholarship
It has been an obsession of modern civil procedure to design ways to reveal more before trial about what will happen during trial. Litigants today, as a matter of course, are made to preview the evidence they will use. This practice is celebrated because standard theory says it should induce the parties to settle; why incur the expenses of trial, if everyone knows what will happen? Rarely noted, however, is one complication: The impact of previewing the evidence is intertwined with how well the parties know their future audience-that is, the judge or the jury who will be the finder …
Modern Odysseus Or Classic Fraud - Fourteen Years In Prison For Civil Contempt Without A Jury Trial, Judicial Power Without Limitation, And An Examination Of The Failure Of Due Process, Mitchell J. Frank
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Locking The Doors To Discovery? Assessing The Effects Of Twombly And Iqbal On Access To Discovery, Jonah B. Gelbach
Locking The Doors To Discovery? Assessing The Effects Of Twombly And Iqbal On Access To Discovery, Jonah B. Gelbach
All Faculty Scholarship
Many observers believe the Supreme Court’s Twombly and Iqbal opinions have curtailed access to civil justice. But previous empirical studies looking only at Rule 12(b)(6) grant rates have failed to capture the full effect of these cases because they have not accounted for party selection—changes in party behavior that can be expected following changes in pleading standards. In this Note, I show how party selection can be expected to undermine the empirical usefulness of simple grant-rate comparisons. I then use a conceptual model of party behavior that allows me to derive an adjusted measure of Twombly/Iqbal’s impact and show …
Global Civil Procedure Trends In The Twenty-First Century, Scott Dodson
Global Civil Procedure Trends In The Twenty-First Century, Scott Dodson
Faculty Publications
Recent scholarship in comparative civil procedure has identified
“American exceptionalism” as a way to describe practices which set the
United States apart from most of the world, particularly the civil law world.
This Article focuses on two areas of “exceptionalism”: pleading standards
and the role of judges. Specifically, pleading requirements are considerably
less strict in the United States compared to other countries. Additionally,
U.S. judges are less active in conducting litigation than their counterparts
elsewhere, especially judges in the civil law tradition. This Article traces
some modern trends toward convergence between the United States and
the rest of the world. …
Hearings, Mark Spottswood
Hearings, Mark Spottswood
Faculty Working Papers
This article explores a constantly recurring procedural question: When is fact-finding improved by a live hearing, and when would it be better to rely on a written record? Unfortunately, when judges, lawyers, and rulemakers consider this issue, they are led astray by the widely shared—but false—assumption that a judge can best determine issues of credibility by viewing the demeanor of witnesses while they are testifying. In fact, a large body of scientific evidence indicates that judges are more likely to be deceived by lying or mistaken witnesses when observing their testimony in person than if the judges were to review …
All Rise! Standing In Judge Betty Fletcher’S Court, Thomas D. Rowe Jr.
All Rise! Standing In Judge Betty Fletcher’S Court, Thomas D. Rowe Jr.
Faculty Scholarship
In this essay, based on a talk given at the Washington Law Review’s March 2009 symposium in honor of Senior Ninth Circuit Judge Betty Binns Fletcher and her three decades of service on that court, I selectively survey her opinions on justiciability issues: standing, ripeness, mootness, and political questions. A significant starting point for this survey is Professor Richard Pierce’s 1999 law review article, Is Standing Law or Politics?, arguing that many Supreme Court votes in standing cases generally, and appellate judges’ votes in environmental-standing cases specifically, can be explained better on the basis of politics than by reference to …
Imagining Judges That Apply Law: How They Might Do It, James Maxeiner
Imagining Judges That Apply Law: How They Might Do It, James Maxeiner
All Faculty Scholarship
"Judges should apply the law, not make it." That plea appears perennially in American politics. American legal scholars belittle it as a simple-minded demand that is silly and misleading. A glance beyond our shores dispels the notion that the American public is naive to expect judges to apply rather than to make law.
American obsession with judicial lawmaking has its price: indifference to judicial law applying. If truth be told, practically we have no method for judges, as a matter of routine, to apply law to facts. Our failure leads American legal scholars to question whether applying law to facts …
There's A Pennoyer In My Foyer: Civil Procedure According To Dr. Seuss, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch
There's A Pennoyer In My Foyer: Civil Procedure According To Dr. Seuss, Elizabeth Chamblee Burch
Scholarly Works
This is what it purports to be: a Seussian take on civil procedure. It’s a short, fun essay that covers (1) the iron triangle of civil procedure - the role of lawyers, judges, and juries, and (2) prominent civil procedure doctrines, such as personal jurisdiction, Erie, pleading, discovery, and joinder.
Reluctant Judicial Factfinding: When Minimalism And Judicial Modesty Go Too Far, Scott A. Moss
Reluctant Judicial Factfinding: When Minimalism And Judicial Modesty Go Too Far, Scott A. Moss
Publications
No abstract provided.
Chief William's Ghost: The Problematic Persistence Of The Duty To Sit Doctrine, Jeffrey W. Stempel
Chief William's Ghost: The Problematic Persistence Of The Duty To Sit Doctrine, Jeffrey W. Stempel
Scholarly Works
The duty to sit concept or “doctrine”—or at least what I term the “pernicious” version of the concept—emphasizes a judge's obligation to hear and decide cases unless there is a compelling ground for disqualification and creates a situation in which judges are erroneously pushed to resolve close disqualification issues against recusal when the presumption should run in exactly the opposite direction. In close cases, judges should err on the side of recusal in order to enhance public confidence in the judiciary and to ensure that subtle, subconscious, or hard-to-prove bias, prejudice, or partiality does not influence decision-making. The pernicious version …
'The Law Of The Circuit' Revisited: What Role For Majority Rule?, Arthur D. Hellman
'The Law Of The Circuit' Revisited: What Role For Majority Rule?, Arthur D. Hellman
Articles
In April 2017, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals announced that the full 15-judge court would convene to hear the challenge to President Trump’s executive order “to protect the Nation from terrorist activities by foreign nationals admitted to the United States.” This was a significant departure from the usual practice in the federal courts of appeals. Initial en banc hearing is extremely unusual, and rehearing en banc after a panel decision is almost as rare.
Ordinarily, two features define the ordinary course of adjudication in the federal courts of appeals. First, cases are heard and decided by panels of three …
The Place Of Court-Connected Mediation In A Democratic Justice System, Nancy A. Welsh
The Place Of Court-Connected Mediation In A Democratic Justice System, Nancy A. Welsh
Faculty Scholarship
A justice system, and the processes located within it, ought to deliver justice. That seems simple enough. But, of course, delivering justice is never so simple. Justice and the systems that serve it are the creatures of context.
This Article considers mediation as just one innovation within the much larger evolution of the judicial system of the United States. First, this Article outlines how the values of democratic governance undergird our traditional picture of the American justice system, presumably because the invocation of such values helps the system to deliver something that will be respected by the nation’s citizens as …
Processing Civil Rights Summary Judgment And Consumer Discrimination Claims, Deseriee A. Kennedy
Processing Civil Rights Summary Judgment And Consumer Discrimination Claims, Deseriee A. Kennedy
Scholarly Works
No abstract provided.
Induced Litigation, Tracey E. George, Chris Guthrie
Induced Litigation, Tracey E. George, Chris Guthrie
Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications
If "justice delayed" is "justice denied,"justice is often denied in American courts. Delay in the courts is a "ceaseless and unremitting problem of modem civil justice" that "has an irreparable effect on both plaintiffs and defendants." To combat this seemingly intractable problem, judges and court administrators routinely clamor for additional judicial resources to enable them to manage their dockets more "effectively and efficiently." By building new courthouses and adding new judgeships, a court should be able to manage its caseload more efficiently. Trial judges should be able to hold motion hearings, host settlement conferences, and conduct trials in a timely …
Judicial Lobbying At The Wto: The Debate Over The Use Of Amicus Curiae Briefs And The U.S. Experience, Padideh Ala'i
Judicial Lobbying At The Wto: The Debate Over The Use Of Amicus Curiae Briefs And The U.S. Experience, Padideh Ala'i
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
The continuing debate over the use of amicus curiae briefs at the World Trade Organization (“WTO”) raises interesting questions about the influence of the U.S. legal system on the WTO dispute settlement process. Specifically, it brings to the surface differences between legal cultures and the fact that the U.S. legal culture with its emphasis on procedure is not readily transferable to the WTO. Comparing the controversy regarding the use of amicus curiae briefs before WTO Panels and the Appellate Body with the history and evolution of the institution of amicus curiae before the U.S. Supreme Court may help explain the …
Studying Deck Chairs On The Titanic, William L. Reynolds, William M. Richman
Studying Deck Chairs On The Titanic, William L. Reynolds, William M. Richman
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Specifying Grounds For Judicial Disqualification In Federal Courts., Leslie W. Abramson
Specifying Grounds For Judicial Disqualification In Federal Courts., Leslie W. Abramson
Faculty Scholarship
One essential component of equal justice under the law is a neutral and detached judge to preside over the court proceedings. Public confidence in the legal system is maintained when a judge has no interest in the parties, attorneys or subject matter of the litigation. Sua sponte or by motion of a party, a federal judge is subject to disqualification for conflicts of interest on both constitutional and statutory grounds